But the packed houses last week at Sadler’s Wells showed that there is a huge fan base for The BalletBoyz celebrating their maleness through the deep satisfaction of moving to music.
Founders and former dancers Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, both Royal Ballet products, have successfully tapped a nationwide market and last week included London in their current UK tour.
Four out of five works had London premieres at the Wells last week starting with Javier De Frutos’s The Title Is In The Text, to music by Scott Walker.
A mammoth see-saw stood in the centre of an empty black stage; the men in greyish shirts and trousers, the lighting dim.
But boy, what talent those dancers have.
The usual question about British modern dance (what does it all mean?) arose but this piece was a pleasure to watch.
There was a great deal of running in circles in Ivan Perez’s Human Animal, although quite why was hard to fathom.
However the orchestra was on the stage giving a magnificence to the piece that perhaps was never intended.
There is a vaguely funereal feel but the dance drifts harmlessly by.
Craig Revel Horwood’s The Indicator Line was about discipline, I think; a fun piece about boys being boys, and featuring clog dancing (Revel-Horwood’s great-greatgrandfather was a champion of the art).
Russell Maliphant’s Fallen closed the evening.
This talented man fills the stage with movement that satisfies the viewer’s head and heart and though it rounded off the evening with the whole company giving their all, the evening’s triumph was a duet by Christopher Wheeldon.
In all my years both on and off the stage I have never seen a love duet between two men that was anything but toe-curling.
Wheeldon’s US, danced by Bradley Waller and Jordan Robson, avoided the usual trick of expecting at least one of the men to dance like a female in love; always a stomach-churning failure.
Wheeldon finds the emotion in Keaton Henson’s music and asks each dancer to express it through their maleness.
A remarkably honest and deeply moving example of dance that makes the whole evening worthwhile.
This show is worth a few pounds of anyone’s money.
Sadler’s Wells, London EC1 (Now touring nationwide until December 2, details balletboyz.com)